Several Singers Speak Out After Parkland School Shooting: ‘We Are Failing Our Children’

Country artists were among the many Americans who turned to social media to react after a mass shooting at a school in Florida, with one singer urging everyone to "get upset."

The shooting spree took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday (Feb. 14), where a 19-year-old former student is believed to have lured people into the open by pulling a fire alarm before opening fire. Nikolas Cruz had been expelled from the school for disciplinary reasons, according to CNN. He killed at least 17 people in what is now being characterized as one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

The attack came just four months after 26 people were killed by another lone gunman in a mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, including at least 12 children. The victims of that rampage ranged in age from 17 months to 77 years. Just a month before that, 58 people were killed and more than 700 others injured when a shooter opened fire on the audience at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1.

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According to CNN, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have taken place in the last five months, and Everytown for Gun Safety reports that there have been 18 instances in which guns have been discharged in schools in the United States in the first two months of 2018 alone. Despite those grim statistics, America's lawmakers have failed to act on gun control or even have a serious policy debate in the face of massive lobbying efforts on the part of the NRA and the gun lobby, and country artists including Cam, Margo Price, Jennifer Nettles, Brothers Osborne and more were among those who expressed not only heartbreak, but outrage after the latest tragedy.

"Congress does nothing," Price wrote. "We are failing our children."

"This is not the America we are capable of," Cam tweeted on Wednesday evening. "Please get upset."

Rosanne Cash has often voiced her opinions on gun about gun control in public, and she took a harder stance, writing, "I'm so ashamed that this is who we are. We don't care enough about the lives of children to prevent the purchase of assault rifles ... Congress, this is on you."

Cruz used an AR-15 rifle that was purchased legally to conduct his shooting spree, Peter J. Forcelli, a special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, tells the New York Times. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.